Wrangler Dani

Writer, editor, wife, adoptive mama and cowgirl living in beautiful Central Oregon.

Gratitude and Advent

I’ve been thinking about Advent this year, more than usual. Maybe it’s because I’m preparing for motherhood, and I long to make Christmastime a holy season in our family, and give us moments for reflection as well as joy. Also, this year’s holiday season feels bumpier than most – we are still in the middle of home improvement projects, we didn’t get to go to Texas like we usually do for Thanksgiving, our Christmas celebration will be condensed because of work obligations and other plans. None of these things are bad, of course – our kitchen is lovely and looking more beautiful every day, although we missed our Texas family we had a great time with our Oregon/Nevada one, and those obligations are a positive thing – after all we are grateful for jobs and weddings and friends.

But upheaval means that the traditions we can keep; the reflections we can make, are even more valuable. I think about the practice of gratitude, and how it spills directly into Advent, the season of hopeful waiting, of “adventus” which means “coming”. Sometimes the wait can cause our hearts to burst with joy, but more often we find ourselves despondent in flickering fluorescent light, paging through five-year-old magazines and wishing we were anywhere else.

So how do we hold to our thankfulness while we wait? Where do we find gratitude in long cold nights, when our plans don’t work out like we hoped and we wonder if God is listening, anyway?

…..

I wrote that question and then sat here and looked at it for a while. To be honest, I’m not sure. I know the ache of the wait very well, and I also know the joy of a grateful heart despite the wait, the power that comes through faithfulness on a long road, the peace that’s possible, even in the dismal waiting rooms of life.

So I guess I’ll take my inspiration from Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist. Zechariah struggled to have faith and stumbled on the way, discouraged by his long wait, but he also gave us one of the most beautiful welcomes to the Messiah, Jesus:

Luke 1:68-72 “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us; to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant…”
This year, I’m sitting in the tension of gratitude and expectation – holding my long wait with the knowledge that God keeps his promises, redeems his people and saves us from our enemies. I’m not going to paper over this Advent season by stripping away the wait or failing to acknowledge the joy and difficulty of long expectation. I’m praying for a December that surprises me with its power and brings streams to the desert of my weary soul. I’m praying that gratitude and generosity, hope and love, joy and sorrow, can fill my heart and make me ready for the next chapter God is writing. After all, in the ways that matter, the wait is over: love has come, God is with us, we can indeed rejoice. Sounds like a good place to start the Advent season to me.